WHO OWNS THAT: Fire fighter owns vacant home that caught on fire

A captain in the Evansville Fire Department owns that vacant house on Franklin Street that caught fire Friday night.

The blighted home at 411 E Franklin, which is owned by Evansville Fire Captain Larry Charles Wildt Jr., was already on the radar of Evansville’s new land bank. The land bank already intended to take the structure from Wildt's company – Canlar LLC – which operates out of Wildt’s West Side home at 5206 Chastain Dr., according to records from the Indiana Department of State.

Neighbors who reported the fire Friday said random people often entered the structure.

City officials often cite the danger of fires, risking damage to other property and injury to firefighters, as a reason to make investments in fighting blight. City Council just invested $1.7 million in a land bank to cleanup vacant structures.

Nobody answered the door Saturday at the Wildts’ Chastain Drive residence, where according to Vanderburgh County Treasurer records he claims a homestead exemption, indicating he or his wife Candy live there. He also couldn’t be reach at the home he owns at 2123 W. Iowa St., where he also claims a homestead tax break. A neighbor there Saturday said Larry Wildt does reside at the Iowa Street house.

Canlar LLC is a dissolved corporation since Feb. 5, according to state records. County records indicate the taxes on Wildt’s other properties are paid. The Courier & Press’ on going Who Owns That? project has found property investors often take advantage of state and local laws that allow them to stop paying property taxes as a strategy to get local government to take the property and pay for the demolition. Those investors simultaneously pay taxes on properties they wish to retain.

The Evansville Fire Department has not announced the cause of Friday’s fire.